Any higher performance port today should be USB-C-just remember that just because it’s USB-C doesn’t mean the actual electronics inside the PC or drive can hit the highest speeds of what a USB-C port can do. For example, for data transfers from an external drive, a USB-C port could mean everything from USB 2.0 High Speed (480Mbps) to USB 3.2 SuperSpeed 20Gbps as well as USB4 and Thunderbolt 3. What is carried over the wires varies greatly. Keep in mind, USB-C refers only to the connector itself. You see it in everything from phones to laptops. USB-C is the latest of the USB connectors the world is coalescing around.

Type B ports are becoming rare, though you might find one on enclosures supporting 5.25-inch hard drives or optical drives. USB 3 Type-B is the larger, blocky version of USB 3.0 Micro B. It’ll do 5Gbps and is fine for hard drives and SATA (internally) SSDs. It’s actually the same Micro USB port used on your phone, but beefed up with more data lines to hit USB 3.0 speeds. This is still a very common port on many lower-cost portable and desktop external hard drives today. Don’t worry about Gen 2, 10Gbps, or Thunderbolt with single hard drive enclosures because it doesn’t really matter. No hard drive, unless combined in RAID with others, can outstrip the 5Gbps (roughly 500MBps real-world after overhead) throughput of USB 3.1 Gen 1. For the sake of brevity (and sanity), we generally shorten those names to USB 10Gbps, or 10Gbps USB, for instance. In an attempt to simplify things, the USB Forum has recently changed the nomenclature to indicate throughput speed-SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps, SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps, and SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps-because performance is a priority for most uses. Beyond that simple statement, the story gets confusing-largely because of the plethora of variations: USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5Gbps, which is basically USB 3.0), USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps), and USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20Gbps), and now the up-and-coming USB4. The vast majority of external drives today are USB drives. The worst value for an external hard drive is typically the lowest-capacity drive.

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